He pipped Fernando Alonso by seven hundredths of a second and Felipe Massa underlined Ferrari’s pace with the third fastest time.

Massa had been poised to improve his time before going off at the exit of the Parabolica at speed.

He slid sideways through the gravel trap and narrowly missed hitting the barrier.

The McLaren drivers led the way in the early part of the session despite running substantially different set-ups on their cars.

Jenson Button continued using the steeper rear wing from first practice to begin with, while Lewis Hamilton used a lower rear wing and then tried a version without the F-duct. He was just 0.056s quicker than Button at the end of the session.

Hamilton suffered a problem with his front wing during one run when the front-right endplate broke, forcing him to pit for repairs.

Mark Webber ended the session in sixth place but had to cut his running short after a water leak on his engine. He was told by his team to stop the car on the track.

But that paled in comparison to HRT’s problems. Bruno Senna made three attempts to get out on the track, all of which ended with the car breaking down. Sakon Yamamoto only managed five laps in his car.

A few other drivers joined Massa in off-track excursions. Michael Schumacher went off at the Parabolica earlier in the session, though somewhat less dramatically than Massa, and Kamui Kobayashi slewed sideways into the gravel at the second Lesmo corner.

Fully agree with you there Steph. I suppose he did get a bit over exited there with the perspective of having a really good car here in Monza.
What a relieve he saved it right on time. Let’s hope he takes it to P3 or better tomorrow as well.

The HRT team really had a lot of trouble today. 3 times stopped for Bruno Senna, not sure how much running YAM got, but it was nott too much i suppose.

I think quite a lot of this has to do with the Red Bulls and Ferraris doing their fast runs later than McLaren. I think McLaren are confident enough in their speed to not aim for glory today. We’ll have a better idea tomorrow, probably.

I think you’re right. It’s gonna be incredibly close between all three teams tomorrow. I think pole position is anybody’s (from those teams) at this point. Hoping to see Kubica surprise and clinch a good spot on the grid.

So McLaren is faster with the F-Duct. That is very interesting, since the wisdom is that you want only enough downforce to be able to brake in straight line here. They have a hard choice to make, they may lock out the front row running the F-Duct but can they keep from being passed before they can make some gap on the track. Someone needs to box Horner’s ears for his pathetic, fake whining about how bad they where going to do here.

I hadn’t realized McLaren had split their set up in FP2. So I had it wrong. I was comparing FP1 to FP2 relative to other teams. So yeah Hamilton was a bit quicker in FP2 running without it than Button with it. (Hamilton has about .25s on Button normally but here I don’t think a driver’s raw pace matters so much on this track). They have an interesting choice to make.

If I were the head of something important at the Renault engine factory, I’d want to terminate my engine supply with RedBull. All they ever do is complain about the engine and make negative comments about it. The only reason the media and fans all have a predisposed idea that Renault engines are slow is because of RedBulls rantings. Why isn’t Toro Rosso Sweeping up the track with a similar package and a Ferrari engine? (especially last year when the cars were identical)

In 2008 when a better driver was in the STR, they won a race… before RBR had ever won a race. Not sure if the cars were identical that year other than engines though. I would assume they were pretty similar.

It does seem that the Renault is probably a bit down on power compared to other engines though. RBR and Renault have both been extremely dominant on slower twistier tracks, but less so on the high speed circuits. Vettel’s time today may be an indicator that’s changed though. We’ll see tomorrow I guess.

It’s not so much a solution, it’s just that the combination of the good slow-corner stability of the RB6 and the ‘driveability’ of the Renault engine means that both Red Bull drivers get excellent clean exits from corners. They don’t have the top speed of the McLarens or Ferraris, but they can hit it quicker.

Mclaren have pretty much admitted that they have more pace in the post FP interviews, but how much? They are also a bit surprised by the pace RBR and Ferrari found late on (but I really don’t know why) it seems to me just like Spa they have it in hand again. They are the ones to beat.